This Is It. Mike Zimmer’s Tell-All Season Begins.
Dustin Baker
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Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer took over operations of the team in 2014, commanding the franchise to a .576 win percentage in seven seasons. Among all NFL teams, that success rate is the eighth-best in the league during the timeframe.
In the seven seasons before Zimmer, 2007-2013, the Vikings win percentage was .487 — or 21st in the NFL. So, Zimmer is wholly accountable for dragging the team to a Top 8 status leaguewide from a Bottom 12 standing. That’s why Zimmer remains in charge of the enterprise.
This year, however, is for all the marbles. Many fans of the team believe the product is stale because, since Zimmer’s arrival, the Vikings exactly mix-and-match good seasons with mediocre ones. Minnesota has not reached the playoffs in back-to-back years under Zimmer. And most storied franchises find a way to enter the postseason in consecutive years.
Zimmer’s Vikings must find a pathway to the playoffs and find prosperity in the postseason tournament. Otherwise, the Vikings ownership will likely explore top-down change.
The Offseason Summary
General Manager Rick Spielman recognizes the stakes for his ballclub. The 2021 offseason was more change-oriented than any other year with Zimmer at the helm. Spielman designed the 2021 roster in a Zimmerian fashion. Free agency was all about defense, defense, and more defense. Because of injuries in 2020, Minnesota’s defense descended to the depths of hell for the first time since 2013. Indeed, the Vikings ranked 29th in the NFL via points allowed during the pandemic season.
In no way, shape, or form should that happen again. Why? Well, Spielman signed defensive newcomers in a frenzy, disabling any possibility of Zimmer getting down to nubbins on his depth chart again, as was the case last season. Here are the new faces:
- Mackensie Alexander (CB)
- Bashaud Breeland (CB)
- Everson Griffen (DE)
- Patrick Peterson (CB)
- Sheldon Richardson (DT)
- Dalvin Tomlinson (DT)
- Nick Vigil (LB)
- Stephen Weatherly (DE)
- Dede Westbrook (WR)
- Xavier Woods (S)
Aside from Westbrook, that is a defense-only boon. Most of those men joined the Vikings on one-year contracts, so it’s almost as if Spielman is setting the table specifically for Zimmer with a “this is it, buddy” ultimatum. If Zimmer does bow out after 2021, it will be on his terms — this magnitude of defensive firepower is the way Zimmer would prefer to go down swinging.
On the other hand, the draft was an offense-oriented affair. Spielman popularly drafted offensive linemen Christian Darrisaw and Wyatt Davis while grabbing a development contingency plan at quarterback in Kellen Mond. If the Zimmer-Cousins experiment travels southward, Mond, in theory, should be the next man up at quarterback in 2022 or 2023. Here’s the full draft haul:
- OT Christian Darrisaw — Virginia Tech
- QB Kellen Mond — Texas A&M
- LB Chazz Surratt — North Carolina
- G Wyatt Davis — Ohio State
- DE Patrick Jones II — Pittsburgh
- RB Kene Nwangwu — Iowa State
- S Camryn Bynum — California
- EDGE Janarius Robinson — Florida State
- WR Ihmir Smith-Marsette — Iowa
- TE Zach Davidson — Central Missouri
- DT Jalen Twyman — Pittsburgh
Cousins Culpable in Zimmer’s Verdict
Zimmer might not handle too much on the offensive side of the ship — he’s famously perceived as the defensive guru — but his wagon is hitched to the 2021 performance of Kirk Cousins.
And the Vikings will go as far as Cousins takes them. Last season was a case study on what a defensively rudderless Vikings team can do with Cousins at the helm. The ceiling is 7-9. With a trashy defense, Cousins can lift a team to 7-9, no further. In his defense, few quarterbacks can circumvent the leagues’ fourth-worst defense. The New Orleans Saints, led by Drew Brees, were plagued by a bad defense similar to the 2020 Vikings from 2014 to 2016. This is how the Saints fared in those seasons:
Not many folks remember — or simply don’t care because Brees received more sympathy than Cousins — the doldrums of the Saints before their 2017 campaign. Their defense was stinky, and Brees could not overcome it.
Well, Minnesota’s defense shouldn’t be terrible in 2021. And that means Cousins must finally effectuate a deep playoff run. In 2018, his first year with the Vikings, he and the team collapsed down the stretch. The events of December 2018 put an unpalatable taste in the mouths of modern-day Cousins truthers. After that, Cousins authored a playoff victory in the 2019 playoffs. But 2020 was a lost season for everyone associated with the Vikings.
Cousins must help Zimmer — and vice versa — reach the NFC Championship. It will secure each man’s employment beyond 2021.
If No Luck, Brace for Wholesale Change
It will not be enough to finish the season 10-7 or so and find a loss in the Wildcard Round of the playoffs. Zimmer needs another postseason victory — and probably two of them. The stakes are established because of past performance. The team has not won two playoff games in a single season since the 1987 season. Good grief.
Should Zimmer, Cousins, and everybody else not find two playoff wins, the future becomes wildly uncertain. Thankfully, the aforementioned Mond is waiting to seize the franchise as his own. Dalvin Cook, Harrison Smith, Justin Jefferson, Eric Kendricks, Adam Thielen, and hopefully Danielle Hunter are all pieces to revamp around with new leadership if Zimmer encounters his doomsday.
Historically, Minnesota avoids full rebuilds. Would you support the trade of men like Jefferson or Kendricks merely because Vikings ownership wants to rip the organization down to the studs? Perhaps that would help in the long run, but those assets are too electrifying to toss aside entirely.
But make no mistake, if the 2021 season is underwhelming — that is not a prediction, but instead, an illumination of the possibility — Zimmer will likely head elsewhere early in January. Cousins would probably undergo the same treatment in March via trade.
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